Friday, August 28, 2009

Smell - 16 months old

Zo Ee at 16months 2weeks old. (27/8/2009)

Zo Ee is demonstrating an amazing skill in smell recognition. Merely through smelling, she can recognize the food that I’m cooking for her . This happens quite a number of times since a month ago where at first I thought it was purely coincident. But today, Zo Ee reaffirmed my belief that she does recognize food through their smell.

This was what happened just now; every noon time, I’ll play an educational VCD for her while I prepare lunch for her in the kitchen. As usual, little Zo Ee will be engrossed to her VCD programme. When the show finished, she will look for me and inform me that the show has ended, usually by saying “Finished!” with hands gesture too. While she was near the kitchen door just now and I was expecting her to inform me that the show has ended, but she was asking for “scramble eggs” instead while pointing at the kitchen stove. Surprisingly, I had already made some scramble eggs for her lunch today and it was still hot on the frying pan. She must had recognized the smell of scramble eggs and that smell had changed her topic. When I proceeded to remove the disc from the player and to switch off the television before settling little Zo Ee for her lunch, the impatient little Zo Ee kept telling me, “scramble eggs, scramble eggs” and asking for it while directing me back to the kitchen area.

This incident really brought me back to a few more similar incidents which happened last month. There are a few occasions, where I was steaming some green peas for her, little Zo Ee came near to the kitchen, standing next to the safety gate which was blocking her entrance to the kitchen, telling me "green peas, green peas" while pointing at the stove again. She could have smell the on-going steaming green peas on the stove, located it at the precise location and not else where. And this also happened to “steamed bean curd” too.

I strongly agree that all babies learn through their senses, and many books have clearly stated that babies do have strong senses during the first 3 years of their lives as they tend to learn through all five senses, and thus things learn during these years tend to stay permanently in their brains. And Zo Ee is a good proof to this statement as she is already able to express herself well in words, where most of the time, little Zo Ee will ask to touch and feel a new object while saying “touch, feel” while trying to reach it with her hands or to smell it, asking me to open it for her, saying “open, smell.” Sometimes, she even put things into her mouth to taste it. Therefore, all babies need to be carefully monitored while they explore their new world especially when they just started to walk and are in the most active phase of their lives, 12months – 18months old.

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